Question

The following is a theoretical example. You are studying a part of the world where humans have lived for 50 thousand years, but agriculture appeared 7 thousand years ago. You compare mtDNA haplotypes of a) local hunter-gatherer smaples from 10 thousand years ago, b) local modern populations (i.e., people living there today), and c) 10 thousand year old samples of people that lived in the neighboring area where agriculture first originated. You find that local modern population mtDNA haplogroups are related closely to the 10ky agriculturalist haplogroups, but are not related closely to the 10ky hunter-gatherer haplogroups. Does this evidence support acculturation or gene flow (and potentially displacement) as the major basis for the expansion of agriculture into the region of the world that you are studying? Explain why in three sentences or less.

Genetics

Answer 1

According to the theoretical explanations, that all mtDNA haplogroups are considered to the outside of Africa and are the decendants from macro-haplogroups such as haplogroup M and its sibling haplogroup N (where the decendant lineages are distributted across many countries) which is a decendant of hologroup L3 (early dispersal of anatomically modern humans).

The evidence support the gene flow as the major basis for the expansion of agriculture into the region than the mtDNA of local hunter-gatherer because all mtDNA hologroups which are considered outside Africa are found to be the decendants of hologroup M or its sibling hologroup N. Still there is an ongoing debate with reference to the geographical origin of hologroup M and its sibling hologroup N because all the hologroups found outside Africa (recent African origin of modern humans) belongs to both lineages (hologroup M and hologroup N).